My Mom called me Saturday while she was at a garage sale. She had found some Disney VHS tapes and wanted to know if I was interested in any of them. I told her which ones I would like and she let me know she would bring them by the next time she was in town.
We still have a VCR. We even watch VHS tapes from time to time. Granted, it’s been awhile since we watched one, but we have.
Mom swung by the office today to drop them off and I put them in the truck. One of the movies that she picked up is Cinderella. Kiera loves the story of Cinderella. She has multiple Cinderella books but as far as I know, has never seen the Disney movie.
We picked Kiera up from daycare and I buckled her in her car seat. As I climbed in the front, she noticed the sack beside her seat. “What is this?” she asked digging through the bag.
“Grandmommy brought you some movies.” I replied, turning in my seat to see her face.
She gasped in excitement as she pulled out the Cinderella movie. “Look!” She exclaimed. She quickly grabbed the other two movies that Mom had picked up.I turned back towards the front and exchanged a smile with Aaron.
“This is great!” she said looking at the covers of the tapes. She then opened the Cinderella cover and exposed the VHS tape. There was a moment of silence before I heard her open another VHS cover.
“MOM!” she yelled indignantly.
I turned in my seat to see what had upset her so quickly.
She held up a movie and shook it. “They are all the same CDs!” She closed the cover of the tape she had been holding and hurriedly opened another movie. “Look! They are all the same! All the same CDs!”
I never thought about it, but I guess if you can’t read and haven’t been properly introduced to a VHS tape you might not know that they aren’t all the same. DVDs almost always have a picture of the movie on them. Not VHS tapes. They are black, rectangle and have white writing on them. I can see where her frustration comes in.
Aaron quickly calmed her down and explained the difference between DVDs and VHS tapes before we had a mini revolt on our hands.
Without making myself sound old, it amazes me the things that she knows about technology. I will never forget when she was about two and a half and watching a movie on my phone. The movie paused because our signal was not great. Kiera didn’t blink an eye as she looked at me and said, “It’s ok. It’s loading.”
She knows about the internet. We can go to a restaurant and she will ask if they have internet so she can watch a movie. It just astonishes me.
I was slightly mortified one day when I realized she had no idea what a commercial was. We only have Netflix at our house. One day as she was watching TV at our work a commercial came on. She was not happy when her show went off for a few minutes and there was absolutely nothing we could do to make things move faster. I never dreamed I would have to explain what a commercial was.
I remember my first cell phone. It was gray with a pull out antenna and a little flip piece that covered the numbers.
Kiera has an old iPhone that she uses to play games and take pictures. Randomly, she will attempt to text someone but it doesn’t have service.
I guess Aaron and I are going to have to keep up on the digital times if we expect to keep up with our four-year-old.
Thanks to technology though, we have recently added a new ritual to Kiera’s bedtime. Usually, bedtime consists of a story and prayer. The last couple of weeks we have added watching a short video.
The video is usually about how something is made. They are generally no longer than 5 minutes and are packed with fun information. We ask Kiera at bedtime what she wants to learn about.
We have watched how bowling balls are made. Along with other things such as mattresses, pillows, crayons, pencils, phones, play dough and so many other things. She is such a little sponge picking up all the details and reminding us of random facts that she learned while watching the movies.
In some ways, technology has been a blessing. We do try to maintain a healthy balance of technology and hands on learning. Tonight, as I wrote my column, she built a train track with Aaron and then made ducks out of play dough.
It was Aaron’s night to put Kiera to bed. Apparently, my little princess wanted to learn about the big windmills that she saw out past Blanket. So, as she cuddled under her soft blanket with Quack-Quack and her Daddy, my little girl learned about wind farms.
Now, you can understand why I never know what to expect from her. I’m off to bed! I need plenty of sleep before tackling questions about wind farms and Cinderella tomorrow.
